


One with the Force: A Rogue One Epilogue

by maytheshipbewithyou221b



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Deaths, F/M, Gen, Headcanon, M/M, connects to original trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maytheshipbewithyou221b/pseuds/maytheshipbewithyou221b
Summary: There is no death, only the Force.They were told this from childhood. It was repeated in fables of the Old Republic, written on scraps of ancient texts, and requisitely spoken when each lose of yet another friend, but those were just words. Only in the end did they discover if they truly believed and if their faith was justified.





	1. One Last Moment

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first published fanfic in any fandom. Please be nice.
> 
> This doesn't save everyone's lives, but it expands on certain characters' backstories and in the second part expands on their future involvement in the story in a way that makes me happy.
> 
> I didn't include K2SO because I couldn't justify him going into the Force in my head(sorry, I know, I'm a heartless bastard).

_There is no death, only the Force._

They were told this from childhood. It was repeated in fables of the Old Republic, written on scraps of ancient texts, and requisitely spoken with each loss of yet another friend, but those were just words. Only in the end did they discover if they truly believed and if their faith was justified.

Saw Gerrera had stopped believing in anything but the cause a long time ago. His faith in the Force as something he could control, something on his side, was eroded with every new Empire injustice until what was once a few flickering embers was barely a star in the dark depths of his identity. While normally he couldn’t pinpoint a day, if you really pressed him, he’d admit that even that small flickering light died the day he buried his sister. So many had been lost, but if he had her, he somehow believed he wouldn’t lose himself wholly to the cause.

Still, in the end, only one belief mattered.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the one that he’d dedicated his life to.

As he watched the the full magnitude of the Empire’s destruction mushroom to life from his lair, as he felt the first impossibly hot wave of air announce his doom, he felt himself reaching, searching, praying for the power, the Force, that he’d given up on so long ago. There had to be a plan. All his work, all his effort had to be for something more. But if he died with Jedha, his home, his cause, his reason for being, what had been the point? He prayed for the Force, prayed that it had guided his actions without his knowledge, prayed that all of this would be for more than the dust his knew his entire existence was about to become. And in that moment, as the explosion reached him, as his body disintegrated into nothing more than a memory, he was with them all, all those being destroyed by the greed and arrogance and fear of a small group of men far, far away. With them all, his very spirit let out a scream that shattered the natural order.

_He was one with the Force and the Force was with them._

Galen Erso had only one thought since he was taken from his hiding place all those years ago: Jyn. She was his first thought in the morning-a ghost of her smile behind his eyelids before he woke-and she was his last thought at night-where is she now?-the only moments he truly had to himself.

He knew with all probability that she was dead-otherwise the Empire would’ve found her and used her against him. No other evidence had been presented to him that pointed to the contrary. And yet, his wife’s religion kept echoing back to him, because he could feel that Jyn was alive, with a certainty that cut all the way to his bones. Deep inside he knew, he knew that she had made it. Every time he touched one of the kyber crystals he was being coerced to warp into a destructive force the likes of which the universe had never seen, he could feel her breath, her warmth, her life continuing onward a galaxy away.

Every time he touched a crystal, for a single glorious moment, he felt like a father again.

And while he made no claims to any connection with the Force, he believed that in this one way he was as in touch with this power as the Jedi of old.

Her face was the last thing he remembered seeing on the rain soaked platform where he was slaughtered. It was beautiful, but hardened by years spent hiding from men trying to hurt him. Previously, when he’d prayed for her he’d mainly focused on the goal for the sake of his sanity: may she succeed, may she right my wrong. But in that moment, looking at her for the first time in years and the last time in his life ,he had only one thought. And it wasn’t about how this must’ve meant she’d gotten his message. It wasn’t a hope that she’d get to Scarif before the Empire fully comprehended what he had done.

It was simple and clear and free of any battle that blazed around him.

She looked so much like her mother.

Lyra was there waiting when he died. She’d never really left.

_He was one with the Force and the Force was with her._

Chirrut was with the Force long before his body died.

Even when all the others, even when Baze, had given up their devotion to the ancient religion, he held to it steadfast. His dependency on the Force to function probably played no small part in this, but he thought he’d still believe even without his peculiar codependence on the entity. Still, there were times he couldn’t help but wonder . . .

How could something as all encompassing as the Force allow for so much devastation? For its own believers to be broken, its idols destroyed?

He remembered being taught that the Force was about balance, that there must be both light and dark. He understood that unfortunately, for whatever reason, that that balance must be brought with blood. He even understood why others couldn’t stand this test of faith. But he believed that there was a greater plan and that the Force would guide him to it.

Yet, in this belief he was alone, even as Baze stayed with him through the years out of love and obligation and lack of anywhere else to go. They’d been stripped of their purpose, Baze had been robbed of his faith, and, as the years went by, they observed their home being plundered of everything else. Still, Chirrut clung to his faith.

Really, what else did he have left?

The moment he sensed the kyber crystal around the rebel’s neck, he knew that their time had come. Their purpose had arrived at last. Baze didn't understand until the end, but he knew from the start: One last mission, one last crusade. Then the Force would welcome them home.

If he were a Jedi, he would have lived.

But Jedis were masters of the Force, he was merely a tool, a pawn whose actions were shaped to its will. He didn't resist.

With each step forward, each word in his chant, he felt himself, his soul, his spirit, whatever made him who he was, dissolve further and further into the warm embrace of the power to which he’d devoted his life. When the shots actually hit his body, he didn't feel a thing.

_He was one with the Force and the Force was with him._

Bodhi had only heard of the Force in passing. Like any good Imperial citizen, he rejected such mysticism for law and order. The is until one day Galen Erso asked him about some food. That was when he’d learned more than he thought he would about the central power in the Old Religion. Apparently Galen’s wife had played some role in the religious organization and . . . well, really he didn’t know the specifics and he wasn’t dumb enough to ask anyone else in the Empire to clarify. That could get both him and his new acquaintance killed.

It’s this silence that saved him.

When Galen first explained about the Death Star, Bodhi wasn’t surprised. It was something that the Empire would do. When Galen explained his plan to help the Alliance destroy the Death Star, Bodhi nearly burst out laughing. He had to be joking right? No one, not even the Rebels, were bold enough or capable enough for that sort of plan.

The look on Galen’s face had told him otherwise.

His friend gave him a choice: continue to let the Empire terrify people into order or to take a stand. Bodhi thought of his mother. The last time he’d seen her was after he’d won a pod race. He’d come home a little tipsy, winnings in hand, grinning from ear to ear: he would buy his sister new shoes and a bed of her own so he no longer had to sleep on the floor and get his mother those earrings he saw in the market . . .then he stopped in his tracks, dread souring the liquor he’d consumed at the after party and weighing his previous grin down into an expression of concern then outright fear. The metal door to their home was was completely torn from its hinges. That could have only meant two things: bandits or Troopers.

He’d prayed to an unknown higher power that it was the former.

Clearly, it hadn’t cared what he wanted.

The Troopers had held guns to the heads of the two people he cared for most in the universe, people who now had cuts and bruises indicative of a struggle. Of course he’d sign on the be one of their pilots. Of course he’d train at their Academy. Of course he’d gladly leave with them right then and there. That didn’t mean he’d ever forgive them for the look on his sister’s face, the expression completely void of the joyful innocence he’d fought so long to preserve. He should’ve known to keep his head down. He should’ve . . .

By the time he’d met Galen, he knew who really to blame for his forceful conscription, who to blame for the injuries that had eventually killed his mother and left him to hope his aunt and uncle were really using his paychecks to care for Kyndra and not for uncle’s Gringan powder habit. He knew the real reason he was there.

So when Galen offered him a choice to continue to serve the Empire or prevent them from destroying more lives, there was really no choice at all.

And on that beach on Scarif, when Bohdi used the last shreds of his strength and his sanity to enable Jyn and Cassian to transmit the plans, he didn’t see death coming. He didn’t understand or believe in the Force. Still, in his last moment, when his only comprehensible thought was that Kyn would face a better future than him, whether he knew it or not:

_He was one with the Force and the Force was with her._

Baze never stopped believing in the Force. He knew it existed as a necessary part of the universe just as he knew the air that filled his lungs was required for him to live. One doesn’t voluntarily train from boyhood to guard a temple for something he doesn’t believe exists. When he’d first come to the temple, he’d believed he’d signed on to be a force for good, to help maintain the balance in his own small way.

Then the Empire rose to break the scales.

By then he had had Chirrut for a year, a month, and three days. He was Baze’s one constant as his world collapsed around him. As troopers, officers, and ships chipped away at the one place he called home, he lost the sense that the Force was really all that good. How could a power as wide spread as the Force allow for such destruction?

So he’d followed Chirrut. He’d made the blind man his moral compass, his spiritual guide. He no longer had faith the Force was good for the universe, but he never doubted his comrade was good for him.

Chirrut, despite being what Baze sometimes considered a blind old fool, never let him down.

He followed Chirrut all the way to a sandy beach on Scarif. His eyes followed Chirrut as his oldest comrade, his partner walked through a thicket of blaster fire and did not get stung by a single thorn. He ran after the old fool only after he fell, his spirit long gone.

He’d lost everything.

Yet, just as he was to give over to despair, something filled him. A presence he would know anywhere.

Chirrut.

His friend was with him in the Force.

This was not the comfort it should’ve been.

The Force had taken Chirrut, but not him. It had robbed him of his center and left him on a war torn beach with no cause left. And in that moment he felt the weight of all the lives that were taken since the Empire rose to power. All the others that would be cut short if that, that machine were allowed to continue to exist. He thought about how a chance encounter on a Jedha street saved him from a fiery death and brought him here. He pictured Chirrut’s face, filled with the firm belief that the Force would set him on the right path.

Suddenly he understood the Force had put him here for a reason. It might not be a reason he understood, but it had to be a reason that was good. Otherwise, what was the point? He had to believe it to be true. Just like Chirrut. He raised his weapon and took aim, Chirrut’s image branded into his very consciousness.

_He was one with the Force and the Force was with him._

Cassian had never seriously considered his beliefs. Cassian couldn’t remember a moment’s peace in which to do so.

His first memory was of huddling beneath a cloak, hiding from the sound of gunfire. He didn’t know the circumstances surrounding this memory, but he knew the cloak was his mother’s. She’d used to sneak him into battles with the Separatists all the time. That didn’t please his father, a shopkeeper who verbally protested that they should keep their heads down, but if he were to be honest his father hadn’t done much more than voice superficial objections.

Sometimes, in fleeting glimpses, Cassian wondered how different he’d be if his father had kept his mother from taking him on missions-if he hadn’t run messages through active battlefields as soon as his legs would let him, hadn’t lured unsuspecting drones into waiting traps with seemingly innocent pleas for help, hadn’t been the decoy in countless attempts to infiltrate Separatist headquarters. If he’d lost his first tooth in a playgroup instead of in a fire fight, if he’d learned to read from storybooks instead of while decoding messages, and if he’d received toy weapons for his birthdays instead of training with real ones. Would his family still be here instead of in one of the unmarked mass graves of one of the many Empire death camps? Would he have siblings? Friends? Something more than orders and hope and the vague concept of freedom he’s sure his parents whispered about over his crib? Would he be able to sleep at night? Would he . . .

He never let himself dwell on these things for long except in his weak moments.

But, really, in what moment could he be weaker than now, kneeling on the beach, wounds bleeding out, watching his death approach, massive and uncaring? 

So for an instance he let himself wonder if he wouldn’t have done as many morally questionable things as he had, if he wouldn’t have spent his life dedicated to one war after another. Would he be different? Would he be happy? His eyes drifted from the waves to Jyn’s face. Her face was as worn out as his. Still over the past few days he’d begun to feel . . .something, some connection he wouldn’t allow to grow because any other time he’d cared for someone the loss-when it came, because it always came-would be infinitely worse. If he were different, if it were all different, could he see a future with her? Could he have had a family? Children? Been a lover, a father, something other than a soldier on the losing side of an endless war?

Tracing the patterns on her face with his eyes, he just prayed that this mission was indeed some sort of redemption, to make up for every kill, every explosion, every drop of blood on his hands. Jyn’s father had given his life, his soul, so that the mass weapon of destruction that was about to kill them both could be destroyed. In a way, Cassian realized, so had he. Every kill, every mission, every loss had led to this mission, to this battle, to this beach.

The transmission had gone through.

They were going to win this battle. Maybe others that followed would win the war.

So many more than him would be able to have childhoods, fall in love, dream past living through the next battle, because he gave himself to this cause that he wasn’t even sure he’d ever fully understood. Really, in this moment he was just happy for a moment’s calm. Happy not to be alone. Content that, final mission complete, he could spend his last moment’s with someone who understood. And, while he’d never truly considered whether he’d believed in it, he thanked the Force for this one moment. For her.

Jyn thought of her father. The few happy years she’d had before Krennick and the Empire had ripped it all away. The few years she’d spent surrounded by love and comfort and support. There’d been no blaster fire, no explosions. Just her parents and herself.

Still, even now she couldn’t deny the fear behind each of her mother’s smiles and the desperate force that had engulfed her small form while she’d been buried in her father’s embraced. The irony that she’d taken comfort in Stormy, a Stormtrooper doll, struck her with full force.

Even her happiest memories were tainted by the Empire.

She turned from the waves to study the exhausted angles of Cassian’s face. Before he’d been sent to rescue her, she’d forgotten what she was fighting for. She’d lost hope that she’d ever feel safe again. Then, through her father’s work, she saw a glimmer of opportunity to ensure that maybe, just maybe, other little girls didn’t have to be ripped from their homes as well. That girls like the one she had saved on Jedha wouldn’t be obliterated from existence like she was about to be.

And they’d succeeded. 

Because of their actions, the universe had a chance to be safe again.

Still, even though in that moment she knew this, acknowledged it somewhere deep in her core, all she truly cared about was Cassian’s grip on hers.

She couldn’t remember whose hand had reached for who’s but somehow his hand, his presence reminded her of Stormy, holding him close at nights on their farm, safe in the knowledge her parents loved her and wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She felt that way here, with him, even as a wave of heat washed over them, a preamble to their oncoming demise.

She hadn’t seriously considered the Force since childhood. Occasionally she’d glance at her mother’s necklace, dangling between her shirt and her chest, and consider her mother’s teachings, but would then shove them aside, the memory too painful to consider.

Yet now, she could almost feel the Force, the energy her mother had promised would take care of her even in her darkest moments, rush around her, filled with her mother and father and Chirrut and Baze and Bodhi. She could almost hear her father whisper _Stardust_. As she gazed into Cassian’s eyes, she wondered if he could feel it too.

She had a moment of calm with him before they were both stardust once more.

They were so intent on and grateful for each other’s presence that neither noticed the strengthening glow of the Kyber crystal around her neck, brighter than even the explosion. Neither heard it’s hum, it would’ve been even more of a comfort if they had. Still, they faced death filled with their loved ones and each other. For that last moment, they were more content than they’d been their entire lives.

_They were one with the Force and the Force was with them._


	2. One Last Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no death.
> 
> All the Rogue One team finds a future in the Force.
> 
> Maybe there could be a happily ever after after all.

They were all there, in the swirling Force of energy. Lyra, Saw, Galen, Chirrut, Bodhi, Baze, Cassian, and Jyn. All together and apart. In one place and spread across the universe.

 

While none had been Jedi, they were all there, swirling in power and soon they found a way to use the power to influence those still living.

 

None were sure who’d had the thought first. The separate thoughts of individuals tend to blend once one is in the Force unless they are trained like the Jedi to keep themselves separate from the emotions that course through the mass of spirits that fill the Force. If they tried, they’d probably be able to deduce that their current bright idea came from Chirrut or Blaze, though it’d be hard to discern which. They, like Lyra and Galen, were now almost a single being. 

 

Still, once the idea was floating in their nether space, Jyn and Cassian took the lead. They were the most distinctive identities in the mass of ghosts, the most resistant to simply melting into the Force. Still, even they, without noticing, had begun to sink and blend into each other.

 

By their lead, the mass helped push the Death Star plans from one rebel guard’s hand into another’s, just before the Sith Lord could grasp it. They followed the plans to the Princess then the droid. Bodhi helped them steer the escape pod to a landing site they all somehow knew to be right and Saw seeded a brief discord in the circuitry of the odd couple before Cassian-or was it Jyn?- guided each on their separate but linked paths to the Jawa.

 

Why? because otherwise the gold one would have been destroyed in a cavern.

 

They didn’t know how, but somehow, of this they were all aware.

 

When they came to the boy, they understood. Just as Galen had built an exhaust port into the Death Star to make it easier to destroy, so had the Force created this boy. He would destroy the Sith known as Darth Vader-another name, Anakin Skywalker, floated through their collective conscious each time they thought his name-and he was the key to destroying Vader. By destroying Vader, the Empire would fall. They could see it stretching out like a map before them, many diverging paths, meeting at one point. Actually three: the boy, his sister, and a smuggler. In any case, this boy was the key not just to their mission, but to restoring balance for them all.

 

Yet even in this expansive power, in this grand scheme, their role was small. Still, it was vital and all gripped to it with the last shreds of their identity in this spirit world.

 

_ They were one with the Force and the Force was with him. _

 

Galen/Lyra led the boy to the Princess’s message, or at least part of it. When the droid ran way, Chirrut/Baze led the old Jedi Obi-Wan to the spunky bot. Jyn and Bodhi cried out in protest over the necessity of the slaughter of the rest of the Skywalker plan, but Cassian and Saw calmed each down respectively, reminding them of the plan. They weren’t happy, but they understood. Seeking comfort, Jyn sank further into Cassian and Cassian melted with her in order to provide it.

 

They continued this way, each aiding where it was needed: directing aim, blocking blaster’s fire, hastening understanding of key points. They felt the pain of Alderaan, slowed the forward march of a garbage disposal’s walls, welcomed Obi-Wan when he gave them a voice. They hastened a farm boy’s legs as they ran, kept the head of a young rebel royal calm, and bred feeling in a hardened scoundrel until at last, as one, they were able to flow through Luke, mind coaxed open by the old Jedi knight, to aim his weapon at the exhaust port.

 

The Death Star exploded. Their mission was complete.

 

Thus from that moment they all became one in the Force, indistinguishable from other ghosts, known only to each other in the most abstract of ways. They were all everywhere, every-when, every living being good and bad, great and small.

 

_ They were one with the Force and the Force was the universe. _

 

They only manifested distinctly as themselves once more, on a day many years later when the entire universe was in celebration, a day when all the rebels came forth from the Force the best they were able to join their living comrades in the festivities. While they couldn’t become Force ghosts like the Jedi, they fashioned the closest forms they could to bodies and appeared where they most wanted to go.

 

Saw went with his sister to where the refugees from Jedha had settled, a guardian force to watch over his people.

 

Bodhi and his mother watched his sister, grown strong and beautiful, as she smiled, an expression that briefly erased the harsh work of many hard years from her face.

 

Chirrut and Baze watched arm in arm as a new location was found for the Temple of the Whills and as a new generation of Protectors practiced their craft.

 

Jyn and Cassian went to a party on Endor, where the boy who had helped finish their mission had become a man. Even while he saw the ghosts of his masters watching, he could feel the ghosts of those other rebels who’d only found home in the rebellion surrounding them, celebrating with the Ewoks. 

 

If he wanted to focus really hard, he might even had been able to pick out the presence of Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor dancing, bodies close, to a slow song only they could hear. Grins spread across their faces, filled with a happiness they’d never had a chance to find in life, absorbed in each other, in this one moment when they could be fully back in the physical world, unaware or uncaring of Jyn's parents contentedly watching them from a perch in a nearby tree, getting a chance to see their daughter grow up. If the last Jedi had focused all his remaining reserves solely on those two dancing presences, for a moment he might even have been able to glimpse the happy sight, the hard lines of their faces softened by the firelight.

 

But he didn’t look for them. Truly, no Jedi ever would. Still, neither o the pair could bring themselves to care. Their sacrifice hadn’t been for nothing, this final defeat closed the door on their war. They had won.

 

More importantly, they were with each other. When later they melded with the Force once more, their identities would become as seamlessly blended as Chirrut and Baze’s or Lyra and Galen’s. And while they’d never manifest on any world in their universe again, they would always be there, a part of it, a guiding force for the light in the galaxy.

  
_ For they were one with the Force and the Force never dies. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know it's sappy, but they all deserve some sap.
> 
> I just felt they needed something happy after the events of the Force Awakens.
> 
> Once again, any feedback would be appreciated and I'd love a beta.

**Author's Note:**

> Please give me all the feedback you want in the comments, I can take it.
> 
> Also, if anyone would like to be my beta for future stories, please let me know. I'd be happy to beta their stories in return.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
